Sears Fine Food

Sears Fine Food
Famous breakfast in San Francisco near Union Square

Sears is famous for little pancakes and long lines. It's located on Powell Street just north of Union Square, open for breakfast at 6:30 am. Their signature dish is 18 little Swedish pancakes with maple syrup--real maple syrup, not the fake kind, and you can buy it in little souvenir bottles if you want. Supposedly residents and tourists line up along the sidewalk to get in for breakfast.

We got there at 8:30 and walked right up to get seated. Of course, we had to try the signature pancakes. Our usual breakfast strategy is to split an egg dish and a pancake dish, so we went that route with a Joanie's Special Omelet (chicken apple sausage, green onions, cheddar cheese) to complement the tiny pancakes, along with a side of bacon.

The pancakes are tiny, real silver dollar pancakes. They're pretty good, yeah, and the omelet was also quite good, as were the hash browned potatoes. The only real disappointment was the bacon, which was a little chewy for our tastes. Everything else was great, and the little pancakes were not just yummy, but fun.

The history of the diner is great to experience, too, even though it's been renovated since 1938. The staff are always busy during breakfast but are quite friendly as they dodge between the small tables. It's a great place to people-watch, too, as the tables are all so close together that you almost can't help but do it. We enjoyed the father and young daughter at the adjacent table, the pictures on the walls, and the story of the diner on the menu.

By the time we left, at 9:30, the line was out the door even in the light rain. So the lesson is, show up early, enjoy your meal, and get going with the rest of your day. The flip side is that there are a bunch of places to have breakfast around Union Square, so it's hard to say that Sears is a place we'll go back to. But great food, quick service, picturesque diner, landmark building...it was definitely worth doing once.

McCormick and Kuleto's, San Francisco

McCormick and Kuleto's
Fine seafood at Ghirardelli Square on the shore of the Bay

In Los Angeles, I had the best clam chowder I'd ever had at a McCormick and Schmick restaurant. When I moved up to the Bay, I saw McCormick and Kuleto's at Ghirardelli Square, and my arrow-quick mind grasped immediately, a year or so later, that they were related. Yes, now when you go to the website, you'll see them listed together; they are part of the same restaurant chain. Besides, a year ago, Mark stopped in for clam chowder and raved about it. So we had to go back.

I don't get clam chowder often, but this one was worth it. Creamy but not too thick, full of clams and potatoes. I'm not sure it was quite as good as I remember it, and honestly, the clam chowder we made for the Super Bowl was pretty darn good too, but it's still a chowdah worth going out of your way for.

The main course was no less impressive: large sea scallops topped with greens, over a crab and potato cake. Scallops are easy to ruin, but these were nicely seared, not overwhelmed by the rest of the flavors, and in just the right portion (split) that they left us with room to walk over to Ghirardelli's and get a sundae.

It's not a cheap place, but for the quality of the food and the view, you can't beat it. Service was a bit slow, but overall we had a great dinner experience. It was worth walking from Union Square. And the cable car stops just a block away, so we were able to ride that all the way back.

It's in a beautiful location in Ghirardelli Square, overlooking the San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz.

Bacar, San Francisco

Bacar
Fine dining with jazz near Pac Bell AT&T Park in San Francisco

We haven't technically had dinner at Bacar yet. We attended a party there, where the superb appetizers brought it to our notice. We have ended up there twice looking for dessert, because they're open 'til midnight. The first time, we realized we were hungry for more than just dessert, got appetizers and bar pizza, and were too full after that to get dessert. This time, we went right for the good stuff.

They have a pastry chef onsite, so we opted for the "assortment of cookies and confections," and were not disappointed. Eleven little pastries were brought out for us to split, and though we had a few favorites, we weren't disappointed in any one of them. Our waitress confided that she found it hard to resist sneaking one or two of them from the back when the pastry chef wasn't looking, and we could understand that. If we had to pick just one, we'd be hard-pressed, but I think it would be between the ginger-lemon cookie, the chocolate chip walnut cookie, and the coconut rice pudding with caramel (served on a little spoon, also available as its own dish on the menu). We're suckers for ginger, and the cookie had just the right blend of spicy ginger with sweet, tart lemon. A good chocolate chip cookie is a joy forever, and this one was crunchy, sweet, and dark, the walnuts adding a nice depth to the flavor (and I usually don't like nuts in my chocolate confections). And the coconut rice pudding: creamy and sweet, the caramel setting it off, a caramelized banana on top. Lovely tropical blend of flavors, with the caramelization of the banana providing enough crunch to offset the softness of the other ingredients.

We took turns dividing up these and the others, choosing the easy-to-split (cookies) and trying to leave the hard ones for each other (like the pudding). Besides the three listed above, there were: a white chocolate almond haystack, a marshmallow, a chocolate tart with kumquat, a meringue layer cookie, a cigar with chocolate creme, a fruit jelly (like a Sunkist one, only softer, smoother, and with a gentler fruity taste), a dried apricot coated in white chocolate with pistachio, and an almond tea cookie.

After that, we had just enough room to try a cheese plate, and decided to sample the Testun Occelli al Barolo, a cow and goat's milk cheese aged in must of Nebbiolo Grapes. It's almost as sharp as a blue cheese, with a nice purple shading on the outside where it sat in the must. It came with small slices of bread, some quince jelly, and marcona almonds, which were perfect to go with the sharp flavor of the cheese.

Mark got a dessert wine flight, too: the one we both liked best was a Gróf Degenfeld 2000 "Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos" from Hungary (from the website, I'm guessing that "Tokaji Aszú" is the type of wine and "5 Puttonyos" is the specific label). It was a nice, sweet wine, not overpoweringly so, but sweet enough that I enjoyed it.

Someday we'll have to go to dinner at Bacar, but in the meantime, it's a great option for appetizers, cheese, or dessert. We'll keep going back and recommend it highly to anyone who might want a quick bite after a ballgame or a Moscone event.

Colibri Mexican Bistro, San Francisco

Colibri Mexican Bistro
Upscale Mexican bar and restaurant near Union Square

Here in California, we are still searching for our "favorite" Mexican place. I'm not sure why it continues to elude us. Perhaps it's that there are so many variations: authentic Mexican, "authentic" Mexican, Tex-Mex, taqueria, and everyone has their own spin on it. In Mountain View alone, we have a Taqueria (Los Charros), which does great simple burritos and quesadillas; a grill (El Grullense), which does terrific sopes, tacos, and so on; and two Fiesta Del Mars, which do more traditional Mexican dishes centered around seafood (and apparently cook everything in chicken broth). And of course, there's Chevy's, which is enjoyable in its own right.

Friday night, we were taking our friend John out for his last dinner in the Bay Area before moving to Florida, and he chose Mexican as his cuisine. In the book Mark bought me for Christmas, Colibri Mexican Bistro was highlighted as having good, fresh ingredients, and it was nearby, so off we went.

Even though they were busy when we called, we were seated right away, at a booth near the bar with a fine view of Mexican wrestling movies. We started with freshly-made guacamole, mild, which was nice and creamy with big chunks of avocado in it. I don't know if anyone else likes that, but I love it. One interesting wrinkle: rather than tortilla chips, they served the guacamole with small corn tortillas. They were warm and fresh and I didn't miss the chips one bit, to be honest. For appetizers, Mark and I also split a pair of small tamales with their "famous" mole sauce, which was sweet and tangy and complemented the corn flour tamales nicely. We used up another few tortillas sopping up the leftover mole sauce.

Our friend John had gotten the mole poblano chicken, and the mole sauce proved to be a hit all around. Don't miss it, when you go. Mark and I had carnitas, with a side of estofado (a seasoned mix of peppers, onions, and mushrooms). The carnitas wasn't the best I've had (the little Mexican place in Palo Alto whose name I can't remember is the best carnitas I can recall), but it was way up there: tender, with a rich, fresh blend of spices. And we enjoyed the estofado: the veggies were cooked, but not soft; the spice was light and complementary rather than overwhelming.

We passed on dessert, as we so often do, but Colibri is going on our short list of Mexican places to return to. It's just a shame there are so many other good places close to Union Square... which we're working on covering for you!

Ti Couz, San Francisco

Ti Couz
Sweet and savory authentic French crêpes

We first ran across Ti Couz, at 16th and Valencia, when we were going to the Roxie Theater just across the street. There are actually a lot of good places to eat around that intersection--next to Ti Couz is a great tapas place, catty-corner is a New York pizza joint that Mark raved about, Mariachi's Taqueria is right down Valencia, and the falafel place next to the Roxie was good too.

Crêpes are not hard to find around here, but finding good crêpes, and ones that aren't just dessert, is a little more tricky. Ti Couz advertises authentic crêpes from Bretagne, and they deliver as promised.

The interior feels very rustic: untreated wood, some white paint and blue trim. It almost feels like a North African French restaurant, something from Tunisia or Algeria perhaps. I don't think we've ever been there when we didn't have to sign up on their self-service waiting board, but the tables turn over pretty quickly during the lunch and dinner rush, so it's usually not too bad. The service can be slow, especially during lunch when it's busy, but the waitstaff are very nice (unlike the French cafe where we did actually have a snooty server!).

This luncheon, we had their salade verte to start, with different fixings. Mark opted for the Parmesan and roasted pecan toppings, while I had mine plain. Both were good; the Parmesan was thick and sharp, so you could really taste it, and the dressing for the salad was good too.

We split a pair of savory crêpes, a mushroom and ratatouille (called "La Jardiniere," the Gardener), and the mushroom, gruyere cheese, and almond. The cheese was great, very sharp and tasty, and the mushrooms (and the mushroom sauce that both crêpes came with) were a great filling. I like the crêpe as a wrap; it feels like a more delicate, tasty tortilla (the corn tortillas I know have a great flavor; these are more eggy). There could've been more ratatouille in La Jardiniere, because what was there was being overwhelmed by mushrooms, but what I could taste was nice and stewy.

We didn't get dessert this time, but have in the past. I actually like the savory crêpes better than the sweet, though their dessert fillings are wonderful. I'm not sure what it is about the sweet crêpes--maybe they're a little too sweet, or maybe it's just that there are other places to get good dessert crêpes.

The little place is crowded, so there's a lot of edging past people. I can see where that would put some people off, but I like the crowded, busy feel--it reminds me of an actual Parisian place. Ti Couz has that European ambiance (our waitress was actually French, or at least a francophone speaker), and the crêpes are delicious, so it's well worth going out of your way for.

The Slanted Door

The Slanted Door, Vietnamese cuisine with a lovely view of the Bay

We'd tried to go to The Slanted Door on a number of previous occasions. Either they were booked for reservations, or had an extended wait for walk-ins, so we gave up and said, "Some other time." But with my parents in town and anxious to go, we made reservations for the Friday night after Thanksgiving and finally got to experience it.
The first thing we noticed is that they've opened a takeout counter inside the Ferry Building itself (the entrance to the restaurant is not inside the building but on the bay side of it). It looks like a good place to get quick carry-out Vietnamese; we mentally made a note to come back sometime for that (it's right across from our beloved Taylor's Refresher--spring rolls and milkshakes, anyone?).

The restaurant itself is lovely, with huge windows opening onto a view of the Bay Bridge and Oakland that sparkles at sunset and glitters at night. Inside, the decor is modern and spare, with green glass, red wood, and flowers accenting it strategically. We were seated in a semi-circular booth that meant that all of us had a good view of the windows.

Our serving staff were uniformly friendly, if not always attentive. We waited a long time between drinks and ordering our food, and the food, when we did order it, came out at unpredictable intervals. That said, it was delicious without exception, from the spring rolls with pork and shrimp to the green papaya salad to the lamb and the shrimp noodles. The eggplant was cooked just right, with a sauce that we liked, though we preferred the Japanese eggplant at Three Seasons for its coconut sauce. In fact, the quality of most of the food at The Slanted Door was on a par with Three Seasons. What The Slanted Door has going for it that Three Seasons can't compete with is the location, the view, and the ambiance. If you are in San Francisco, it's probably not worth driving down to Palo Alto. On the other hand, if you're on the peninsula, it's probably not worth driving all the way up to San Francisco.

Canteen

Canteen, French-American cuisine in a small diner-type room off the Hotel Commodore
(Image from the blog of Michael Bauer, SF Chronicle food critic.)

Canteen seats twenty-one, optimistically: three booths of four, one of two, and seven counter seats. The setup is reminiscent of an old greasy-spoon diner: you can look down the counter and see owner/chef Dennis Leary (not the comedian) working with his sous. They're connected to the Hotel Commodore, which appears to be a dormitory-like hotel for Academy of Art University students.

We got in for the 7:30 seating (they do three seatings a night) and looked over the menu for week 132. The menus change weekly, numbered by the number of weeks they've been serving dinner (they started as a lunch counter; they still do a Sunday brunch which immediately went on our list of brunches to try). Each menu has four appetizers, four main courses, and four desserts. Since there were three of us, that meant we'd only be missing out on three of the twelve dishes. Here's what we ended up getting (detail missing where they don't have the entree posted and I couldn't remember it):

Appetizers: Porcini mushroom soup; Squid poached, with lentils, spicy aioli and breadcrumbs; Treviso and Grapefruit with goat cheese crouton, coriander vinaigrette

Entrees: Roasted guinea hen with butternut squash puree; Brochettes de veau; Alaskan cod in a mild curry sauce

Desserts: Lemon croquettes with hazelnut sauce; Vanilla souffle; Semolina cake with buttermilk sorbet and last year's blueberries

(Treviso is a red lettuce that's a cross between endive and radicchio. We didn't know, and had to ask.)

Everything was delicious. The mushroom soup was creamy with a very nice mushroomy flavor, and the squid was the least squid-like squid we've ever had. Even the tentacles. The treviso salad had a hint of the bitterness you get with endive and radicchio, but not too much of it, and the dressing was really unique. The guinea hen tasted like a less gamey duck, very tender, and it went well with the butternut squash puree, which was one of the smoothest we've ever had. I loved the cod: it was really fresh, and the curry was light enough to let that taste come through. As for the desserts, it was a toss-up between the souffle and the semolina cake. The buttermilk sorbet (house made) tasted just about exactly as you'd think it would, but it still surprised me with its delicate flavor (which unfortunately got lost when overpowered with the tart blueberries).

The terrific food and the intimate setting make this a place we'd definitely recommend. It's walking distance from Union Square, just one block north and three west, and it's worth the trip.